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Galaxy 15
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Galaxy 15
Galaxy 15 is an American telecommunications satellite which is owned by Intelsat. It was launched for and originally operated by PanAmSat, and was subsequently transferred to Intelsat when the two companies merged in 2006. It was originally positioned in geostationary orbit at a longitude of 133° West, from where it was used to provide communication services to North America.
In April 2010, Intelsat lost control of the satellite, and it began to drift away from its orbital slot, with the potential to cause disruption to other satellites in its path. On 27 December 2010, Intelsat reported that the satellite had rebooted as per design and the command unit was responding to commands again. In addition, the satellite had been secured in safe mode and the potential for interference issues from Galaxy 15 had ceased. Intelsat repositioned Galaxy 15 back to its original location on April 4, 2011.[needs update]
On 10 August 2022, Intelsat again lost control of Galaxy 15 attributing this to a space weather event.
Galaxy 15 was constructed by Orbital Sciences Corporation, and was based around the GEOStar-2 satellite bus. The contract for its manufacture was signed in 2001, and at the time it was to have been identical to the Galaxy 12 and Galaxy 14 satellites which were also on order. In 2003, the contract was changed to allow the addition of more transponders to support the US Government's Geostationary Communications and Control Segment (GCCS) Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS), a US Federal Aviation Administration navigation program.
The communications payload aboard Galaxy 15 consisted of 24 transponders operating in the G and H bands of the NATO electromagnetic spectrum, or the C band of the US IEEE spectrum. It also carried two C/D band (IEEE L band) transponders, which form part of the US Government's Geostationary Communications and Control Segment, and are used for aircraft navigation. At launch, the Galaxy 15 satellite had a mass of 2,033 kilograms (4,482 lb), and an expected operational lifespan of around 15 years.
The launch of Galaxy 15 was conducted by Arianespace, using an Ariane 5GS carrier rocket flying from ELA-3 at the Guiana Space Centre in Kourou, French Guiana. The launch occurred at 22:32 GMT on October 13, 2005, at the opening of an 84-minute launch window, and successfully placed Galaxy 15 into a geosynchronous transfer orbit. The French Syracuse 3A military communications satellite was launched on the same rocket. During launch, Galaxy 15 was located beneath the Syracuse spacecraft, which was mounted atop a SYLDA adaptor.
Following separation from the carrier rocket, Galaxy 15 raised itself to geostationary orbit by means of an IHI-500N apogee motor. Its insertion into geosynchronous orbit occurred at around 19:00 on October 19, 2005.
On April 5, 2010, Galaxy 15 ceased responding to commands sent to it by controllers on the ground. However, it is unclear when the actual initial failure date was because commands are often sent by satellite operators days or even weeks apart. Without commands necessary for stationkeeping it began to drift east away from its allotted orbital slot. All television signals were transferred to other satellites and all intentional transmissions were ceased. The Galaxy 12 satellite was removed from on-orbit storage at 123° West to replace Galaxy 15 at the 133° West orbital slot. Galaxy 12 was originally slated to replace another satellite Galaxy 27 which had to be relocated to 45.1° East for the start of a mission critical service for the United States government. Due to the necessity of relocating Galaxy 12 to 133° West, Intelsat was forced to leave 129° West vacant. On 20 April, Orbital Sciences theorized that they believed solar activity was responsible for the satellite malfunctioning, although a later statement by the company said that the company had been unable to actually settle on "a single root cause." On May 3, an attempt at a very momentary series of strong pulses intended to cause a power system malfunction were sent to Galaxy 15. Unfortunately, this did not have the desired effect of causing a power system overload and subsequent shut down of the active transponders. It was the concern of neighboring satellite operators that this type of recovery attempt would have had the potential to permanently damage sensitive hardware on board a satellite and could have contributed to placing a satellite into a permanent unrecoverable control state.
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Galaxy 15
Galaxy 15 is an American telecommunications satellite which is owned by Intelsat. It was launched for and originally operated by PanAmSat, and was subsequently transferred to Intelsat when the two companies merged in 2006. It was originally positioned in geostationary orbit at a longitude of 133° West, from where it was used to provide communication services to North America.
In April 2010, Intelsat lost control of the satellite, and it began to drift away from its orbital slot, with the potential to cause disruption to other satellites in its path. On 27 December 2010, Intelsat reported that the satellite had rebooted as per design and the command unit was responding to commands again. In addition, the satellite had been secured in safe mode and the potential for interference issues from Galaxy 15 had ceased. Intelsat repositioned Galaxy 15 back to its original location on April 4, 2011.[needs update]
On 10 August 2022, Intelsat again lost control of Galaxy 15 attributing this to a space weather event.
Galaxy 15 was constructed by Orbital Sciences Corporation, and was based around the GEOStar-2 satellite bus. The contract for its manufacture was signed in 2001, and at the time it was to have been identical to the Galaxy 12 and Galaxy 14 satellites which were also on order. In 2003, the contract was changed to allow the addition of more transponders to support the US Government's Geostationary Communications and Control Segment (GCCS) Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS), a US Federal Aviation Administration navigation program.
The communications payload aboard Galaxy 15 consisted of 24 transponders operating in the G and H bands of the NATO electromagnetic spectrum, or the C band of the US IEEE spectrum. It also carried two C/D band (IEEE L band) transponders, which form part of the US Government's Geostationary Communications and Control Segment, and are used for aircraft navigation. At launch, the Galaxy 15 satellite had a mass of 2,033 kilograms (4,482 lb), and an expected operational lifespan of around 15 years.
The launch of Galaxy 15 was conducted by Arianespace, using an Ariane 5GS carrier rocket flying from ELA-3 at the Guiana Space Centre in Kourou, French Guiana. The launch occurred at 22:32 GMT on October 13, 2005, at the opening of an 84-minute launch window, and successfully placed Galaxy 15 into a geosynchronous transfer orbit. The French Syracuse 3A military communications satellite was launched on the same rocket. During launch, Galaxy 15 was located beneath the Syracuse spacecraft, which was mounted atop a SYLDA adaptor.
Following separation from the carrier rocket, Galaxy 15 raised itself to geostationary orbit by means of an IHI-500N apogee motor. Its insertion into geosynchronous orbit occurred at around 19:00 on October 19, 2005.
On April 5, 2010, Galaxy 15 ceased responding to commands sent to it by controllers on the ground. However, it is unclear when the actual initial failure date was because commands are often sent by satellite operators days or even weeks apart. Without commands necessary for stationkeeping it began to drift east away from its allotted orbital slot. All television signals were transferred to other satellites and all intentional transmissions were ceased. The Galaxy 12 satellite was removed from on-orbit storage at 123° West to replace Galaxy 15 at the 133° West orbital slot. Galaxy 12 was originally slated to replace another satellite Galaxy 27 which had to be relocated to 45.1° East for the start of a mission critical service for the United States government. Due to the necessity of relocating Galaxy 12 to 133° West, Intelsat was forced to leave 129° West vacant. On 20 April, Orbital Sciences theorized that they believed solar activity was responsible for the satellite malfunctioning, although a later statement by the company said that the company had been unable to actually settle on "a single root cause." On May 3, an attempt at a very momentary series of strong pulses intended to cause a power system malfunction were sent to Galaxy 15. Unfortunately, this did not have the desired effect of causing a power system overload and subsequent shut down of the active transponders. It was the concern of neighboring satellite operators that this type of recovery attempt would have had the potential to permanently damage sensitive hardware on board a satellite and could have contributed to placing a satellite into a permanent unrecoverable control state.
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